Tag Archives: jam

I love all kind of expressive musical instruments and have been lucky to acquire a few, many to be seen in this space-rock video.

The newest is the eight-stringed *strandberg Boden 8 electric guitar. It has a tone that feels almost alive, having strings eventually vibrating into overtones (I’ll make a separate video on this phenomenon as soon as a time window comes around). It’s also great to have access to that lowest octave for overdriven amp sounds and palm-muted percussive notes.

The Chapman Stick goes even lower though, but not with the same aggressively chugging attack. So I use the Stick for plain bass line playing in this piece.

The EWI – Electronic Wind Instrument – is loaded with a symphonic oboe patch here, but it is actually capable of covering six octaves just like the Stick and the 8-string guitar.

The electric cello plays a similar complementary role, screaming out bowed pinch notes for transition as well as dubbing a unison guitar melody. The cello is hard to play in a melodic way, but I like how the sound of it can add depth and emotion to the overall sound of a piece.

The Tim Donahue Signature Electric Fretless Harp Guitar opens the video by fading in a harp-plus-guitar note cluster. Long ago I was looking for a good fretless guitar and found out about Tim’s model with the included six-stringed harp system. I have other fretless guitars and mostly use this one for the lush harp sound. If I ever get rich I will definitely order a second one with frets on the guitar neck, so I can combine fretboard tapping with harp plucking. But for now, this is just me dreaming about harp heaven :-)

Finally, I’m also using the Sitar. It has eighteen (18!) strings where you only play on one, while the rest are hanging in for sympathetic “buzz-tone” resonance. I really enjoy making music with this palette of instruments and strongly feel that this video marks a beginning with a lot more to come.

This is the first improvised session, from the “Anteprima” of the “First International Live Looping Festival – in Rome”, that took place on the 6th june 2009 www.livelooping.it
This recording was taken in Florence on the 3th june 2009, at the “Anfiteatro dell’Anconella”.